What if?
by Gugelhupf
Summary: What if Miller found out about DI Hardy's condition earlier? How would it change the story? Read to find out. Lots of Alec Hardy Whump and caring Ellie Miller within!
1. Chapter 1

**_Hi everyone! I've just finished watching Broadchurch and noticed the lack of Fanfictions about it. and since I am a very sick person, I present you some shameless Hardy Whump. Can be seen as Hardy/Miller I suppose but I don't mention it._**

The story is AU from the point in the series where my Fanfiction begins.

When Alec Hardy was preparing to leave after the Dinner with the Millers, he was beginning to feel lightheaded. He hoped that a walk home would clear his head a bit and failed to notice that his wallet fell out of his jacket when he put it on.

After he had left, Ellie hugged her husband while laughing about her slightly awkward boss when she noticed his wallet on the ground.

"Oh, look - he must have left that," she told Joe while picking it up. "I'd better try to catch-"

She was interrupted by cries coming from Tom's room. She couldn't make out any words but he was obviously in distress. They both dashed up the stairs after sharing a worried glance and found their son in his bed, obviously tortured by nightmares again. They woke him up and tried to calm him down. 10 minutes and a hot chocolate later, he was calm enough to return to bed, leaving his parents to collapse exhaustedly on the sofa. Joe seemed a bit guilty and Ellie worried that he might be blaming himself for the boy's suffering. She felt it, too. They just weren't doing enough to help the boy cope with his loss.

Loss. For some reason, that reminded her of the wallet lying on the table. Though tired, she was way too upset to even think about sleeping and decided that a walk was exactly what she needed right now.

"Hey, why don't you go to bed? I'll go and return that wallet to DI Hardy and then I'll be there, too," she said softly to her husband, who also seemed very tired by now.

"Yeah, why not? Good night," he answered. Joed then stood up, yawned and stretched a bit before going upstairs. Ellie put on her jacket and started walking rather quickly toward the hotel.

When she got there, the DI was stumbling through the hotel's main entrance. She hadn't noticed he'd been this drunk and he also must've walked quite slowly. Intending to leave him alone as quickly as she could so he could keep some of his dignity, she shouted "Sir!" He didn't seem to hear her and just stumbled on. Ellie followed him inside andupstairs to his room. She found him in the bathroom in a puddle of his own blood.

"Oh shit, ohshit!" she cursed while fumbling for her mobile phone. After calling an ambulance, she made sure he was still breathing. When she tried to take his pulse, she found it racing and arrhythmic. His sweaty and pale appearance also contradicted the initial thesis of drunkenness. Ellie willed her stubborn boss to hang on until the ambulance finally arrived.

**_Not much of a cliffhanger since we all know that he survived, eh?_**

**_Tell me your thought so far!_**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello again! Thanks to Pineapple Angel 14 for reviewing and apologies to everyone for being a lazy ass. **

**Oh, btw: Surprise: Broadchurch belongs to the BBC. I'm just a Fangirl with too much fantasy and time on my hands.**

When Alec awoke, everything was kind of fuzzy and loud. He had something over his mouth and nose. When he turned his head to the right, a very concerned-looking DS Miller came into view. She tried to reassure him when he took that thing, which turned out to be an oxygen mask, off his face.

"It's fine, we're taking you to hospital." She sounded a bit angry but he couldn't bring himself to care. Hospital meant that people were gonna find out about his heart condition.

"You can't do that!" he slurred a bit. It was getting difficult to stay awake so he let himself drift back into darkness.

When he woke up again, he was feeling less sluggish and the pain in his head came over him like a wave. He groaned loudly. When he opened his eyes, he saw Miller standing over him, he arms crossed.

"You look like shit," she said drily.

"What'm I doin' here? What're you doing here?", he slurred and tried to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight.

"You forgot your purse and when I came over to bring it to you, I found you passed out on the bathroom floor. Heart arrhythmia! You should have told me."

Damn. Miller knowing about this was exactly what he needed right now. She'd tell Scotland Yard that he was unfit for duty and he would be dismissed.

"Please," he begged, "let me finish this case. I need this case. This is my career. This is my _life_. As soon as we've solved this, I'll leave Broadchurch and you'll get my job. Just please don't tell anyone; they won't notice."

Ellie was taken aback by that statement. She had initially wanted to tell him off as soon as he woke up and then go straight to work. But his words showed how important this was to him and she couldn't shake the feeling off that this whole thing had to do with Sandbrook. She had almost two hours to get to the office anyway.

"Okay then. Start talking. How long have you been like this? What caused it?"

He sighed. Miller was asking the right questions. Perhaps one day she would become an excellent cop. But did he want to tell her the whole story? On the other hand, an ally could help him when he got dizzy and prevent others from noticing. He also needed someone to talk.

And so he talked. He told her everything he hadn't even told his daughter. When he was finished, he could barely hold back tears of injustice and loneliness.

Ellie listened to his story, sometimes interrupting him quietly to ask a question. She was full of compassion for that man, that insufferable, grumbling boss of hers and she _understood_.

When he was finished, she promised him to help under the condition that he'd undergo the surgery after the case was closed. She made him explain everything about his medication and the things he wasn't supposed to eat. After that, she still had half an hour before she had to leave and decided to get herself a coffee and a Newspaper for DI Hardy.

When Miller came back to his room, he could tell that she was upset.

"What is it?", he asked.

"Here, read this," she responded curtly and tossed the newspaper in his direction.

Alec saw the headline "My Danny" and cursed.

"We need to go to the station and sort this out," he decided and made to get up.

"Dammit, Sir! You are supposed to stay here for a couple of days. Lie back down!", Miller said but hurried over to help him stand rather than watch him fall back down anyway. She let him dress himself while she waited outside and then started leading her still slightly dizzy boss out the hospital.

Ellie knew that she'd have to be far more observant than she usually was to help this stubborn idiot get through this case. But he deserved it. Such a loving man, a man who took the fall for his wife who cheated on him just to protect her and his daughter - Ellie couldn't help admiring this bloody ass.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Hiii, I'm back and so sorry for being reaaaally late to the party. I can only excuse this with a) this site being a bitch and not letting me access my account and b) the busy life of a part time actress and fulltime student (9 lessons each day! Iek!) c) Me having forgotten about this already finished chapter FOR MONTHS.**_

_**Also, as you can see, I don't bother retelling the plot. I trust you guys are still aware what happened in Episode 4.**_

A church service and the family press conference later, Alec felt utterly exhausted. Once away from all the journalists, he tried to process what Miller had told him earlier. Something about a village called Whitby and Jack Marshall. Things were getting slightly blurred again. He stumbled away outside to get some cool air and swallow some pills.

Before he even had a chance to recover, Miller left the school gym as well and ran towards him.

"Is everything alright? I was looking for you." She didn't even attempt to hide her concern for her currently very wobbly boss. What frightened her even more was the fact that, hadn't she known about his illness, she wouldn't have followed him and he just would have walked back to Scotland Yard, fully aware that he was in no condition to. She would never even have known about this.

"Found me now, haven't ya, Miller," he mumbled, sounding a bit annoyed but mostly out of breath.

"Yeah, and I'm driving you home, now."

He tried to resist but Ellie was having none of it.

"You look terrible. It's either your hotel room or the hospital, sir. You're not going back to work."

He eventually opted for the hotel. Miller drove him there, unsuccessfully trying to shut him up. He didn't back down however and instead of leaning back in the car seat and catching his breath, he questioned his colleague about their findings regarding Jack Marshall. Perfectly reasonable, he thought.

Ellie managed to somehow get the idiot she called her boss to his hotel without further incident. However, his refusal to shut up wasn't only getting on her nerves, it was also making him worse. His brain was obviously getting less oxygen than it needed, as he was stumbling rather than walking. Also, he had stopped making a lot of sense.

Becca Fisher, who was currently working upstairs, gave Alec a sympathetic look when he passed her on his way to the room. Ellie didn't think she looked any surprised or taken aback at the sight. But then again, Ellie had made sure to tell her about his heart condition, just in case.

Once they were in the room, Ellie forced him to sit down. He was pale and sweaty.

Ellie sighed. The man looked like shit and although he almost always looked that way, she felt sorry for him.

She got out her mobile phone and told Alec to stay put. Once outside the room, she called Joe. He knew, of course. After all, she had spent all night in hospital with DI Hardy.

"What's the matter, sweetheart? You coming home?" Joe said.

"No, actually, I wanted to let you know that it might get a bit later. It's _him_."

"Oh no! He okay?" came the reply.

"Yeah," Ellie said, "sort of. I'll be home soon."

"Okay. I love you," Joe responded and hung up.

When Ellie came back into the room, she was greeted by a pitiful sight. The DI had fallen asleep but he seemed to be suffering nightmares for he cried quietly and clutched his chest. Ellie decided to wake him up and get him to bed because the chair wouldn't offer a lot of comfort for the man.

She crouched next to him and touched his arm while softly saying:

"Sir. Please wake up, it's just a nightmare."

He flinched and startled awake.

"Miller! What're you doing here?"

"I drove you here, remember? Now, Sir, I suggest you get some rest. I'll see you in the morning." He nodded and she left.

* * *

Ellie watched her son with unease. Somehow, she had let her boss talk her into this. So, here they were in the middle of the night, her boy Tom skateboarding down the road as a replacement for Danny. It was surreal and stressful for nearly everyone involved.

Once the whole thing was finally over, she took Tom home and put him to bed, he was exhausted and seemed a bit shaken. Joe was already in bed and little Fred was sound asleep too but Ellie just couldn't sleep. The house was eerily quiet and Ellie felt rather content, surrounded by her loving family. Nonetheless, something felt off. She couldn't quite place the feeling, couldn't know that it was her Police Sense tingling as a reaction to long-term exposure to a murderer. What she did come up with was that it must be pity for her lonely, grumpy boss and since she had no intention of going to sleep just yet, she decided to go and see how the idiot was doing. With any luck, he would be still up. If he wasn't - then at least the walk to the hotel and back would have cleared her mind a bit to finally go to sleep.

* * *

When she reached his room, however, she heard heavy breathing and quiet sounds of distress from the other side. Already knowing what to expect, Ellie decided that is was best to immediately wake him since all that distress couldn't be good for a man with a heart condition. Ellie ran to Beth to get the keys from her and burst into the room. The commotion still hadn't woken up the guy but Ellie was once again faced with a sweaty, whimpering mess.

When she had succeeded in gently waking him up, Alec didn't realise at first that he had company. Instead, he began crying as he often did when faced with his bleak, unhappy life.

Ellie was at a loss as to what she was supposed to do now. Just when she decided to finally get over herself and try to comfort her boss, he saw her. Immediately, he calmed and stopped crying. When Ellie looked at his almost indifferent, grumpy expression, she was on the verge of forgiving herself for not having seen her boss's condition sooner. He was a very good actor.

"Miller?", he said irritably. "What's going on?"

"I just wanted to check on you, sir. You're lucky I did, though," she stated dryly and noticed how his eyes grew a bit unfocussed. He was about to say something no doubt grumpy when she cut him off.

"You better take some of those pills of yours."

**Well, what do you guys think?**


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